Performance improvement - Feedforward

From PLN

by Maureen Sullivan, published June 29, 2006

W. Edwards Deming, widely regarded as one of the leading experts on quality improvement of performance in organizations, included annual performance evaluations as one of the Seven Deadly Diseases. He believed that the effects of performance evaluations that focused on the judgment and rating of past performance were “deadly” because they caused fear in those involved and because they did not lead to sustained improvement of performance. Instead, he found that they lead to short term improvement at the expense of long-term improvement.

In libraries, traditional performance evaluation systems have proven to be ineffective. Most staff and many supervisors dread them. Supervisors often put them off. They struggle to find effective ways to convey specific information about performance. A significant new challenge is that work performance in many situations includes significant new work activities. Many staff are called upon to perform new work and to learn how to do this work as they are performing it.

In the article, “Try Feedforward Instead of Feedback" (Leader to Leader, Summer 2002), Marshall Goldsmith proposes a shift from performance feedback to an approach that focuses on future improvement. Instead of providing feedback on past performance, leaders provide information and suggestions for future performance and offer guidance and help. Leaders practice effective coaching on a regular basis. They target this coaching to the specific needs of each individual. Goldsmith offers the following ten reasons to try his feedforward approach:

We can change the future, but not the past.
It is usually more productive to focus on doing things well and solving problems than to point out what is wrong.
Feedforward is especially suited to successful people.
Feedforward can be practiced by anyone who is familiar with the work activity. It does not require personal experience with the person.
Individuals do not take feedforward information personally the way they do with feedback.
Feedforward reinforces the possibility of change. It is based upon the assumption that people can make positive changes in their performance.
Few of us are effective at giving constructive feedback and most of us do like to receive it.
Feedforward can address most of what would be covered in the feedback process.
Feedforward tends to be more immediate and more effective than feedback. The focus is on offering suggestions and allowing the recipient to decide how to improve.
Feedforward can be a helpful tool to apply with any colleague -- staff, team members, peers, and managers.

Feedforward may be an awkward term but it suggests an important shift in focus in both the philosophy and practice of performance improvement. Most individuals who work in our organizations today want to be successful contributors. Many face the challenge of learning to do new work and to perform their work in different and more complex ways. Leaders recognize the need for competency development and are increasingly aware of the need to provide training and education to staff at all levels. Learning is truly an integral part of work performance today. This calls for a positive approach to performance improvement, one that focuses on the development of each individual’s competence and capacity for contributing to effective organizational performance.

This approach obviously would not be effective in those situations in which there are serious performance issues or those in which an individual will not assume personal responsibility and accountability for effective performance. Such situations demand immediate counseling with specific and constructive feedback.

An approach in which the focus is on continuous improvement of performance and where the leadership philosophy is one which assumes that most staff want to contribute their personal best is the most appropriate for the complex and ever-changing workplace in libraries today.

Maureen Sullivan, Principal of Maureen Sullivan Associates, is a member of the Library Leadership Network Editorial Board.